RECOMENDACIONES

The learning languages area offers students a unique opportunity to develop student ability to think and reflect critically in an intercultural manner. It offers students the opportunity to see how others view and interpret the world differently based on their cultural identities and practices. The focus group data support this notion, with all students reporting that they experienced the development of their thinking capacities according to the International Capabilities framework:

ENGAGING CROSS-CULTURALLY BEING AN ACTIVE & ENGAGED ‘CHANGE AGENT’ IN GLOBAL CONTEXTS

MAKING POST SCHOOL & WORK CHOICES IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT

Critical thinking during and about cross-cultural interactions

1 2 3 4 5 6

Curiosity: Taking an interest in the world and in other people’s lives 1 2 3* 4* 5* 6

System’s thinking: being able to tease out and make connections between the multiple dimensions of both local and global issues 2* 4*

Awareness of possibility of opposing interests

1 2* 3* 5 6

Deliberately remaining open-minded while all dimensions of a problem are considered 1 2 4 5 6

Ability to imagine multiple and different possible futures for oneself 5 6

The focus group research highlighted five areas that were key to students developing

thinking skills in an internationally capable manner:

a) The role of teacher as facilitator, the importance of questioning , and choice of activity

According to the students of the focus group, the teacher who best provides a lesson that stimulates international thinking is one who facilitates the lesson but allows students to process their own thoughts and opinions. Direction is only given through the use of poignant and reflective questions. Consensus or the ability to regurgitate content is not promoted. Participants highlighted this by citing an episode where the class was discussing stereotypical statements made by the French about immigrants. To make the students critically think about these stereotypes using the target language of French, the teacher would always follow up a stereotype by asking in French if the students had also heard these statements uttered in a New Zealand context. This questioning was key in ensuring that the students made connections with

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the problem of immigration on both a local and global scale. The classroom recordings show that at times, students were hindered in expressing themselves completely in the target language, resulting in a smattering of “franglais” (a mix of French and English). However, this Franglais still demonstrated that critical thinking on cultural interactions was occurring in the French classroom.

Student 5 clarified that the success of this lesson also hinged on how the teacher presented themselves – as facilitator, the teacher must create an atmosphere where all students’ views and ideas are valued and heard; the teacher’s opinion then becomes one of many in the group. Student 5 admitted that it is unavoidable that teachers will have an influence over students but where her teacher is successful is in creating a supportive, equitable environment. For most of the students, they have had the same teacher throughout their time at high school. Therefore they all agree that they are at the stage now where they believe themselves to be pretty set in their own beliefs and feel comfortable to tell the teacher.

Student 2’s journal highlights the need for teachers to structure their lessons with poignant questions that encourage critical thinking in an internationally capable way, particularly when trying to get the student to consider cross-cultural interactions. Of the first lesson observed (immigrants and stereotypes) Student 2 said that the work was interesting and also relatable as there are immigrants in her town. Her teacher asked questions from the text, but put them into a context for the students (making them about their hometown instead of France). She thus found that she was able to relate more easily and understand some of the struggles an immigrant might have when moving to NZ or any new country as a result of this task. She felt that she had experienced an activity that allowed her to tease out and make connections between the multiple dimensions of both local and global issues, despite finding the language of the text extremely difficult and not managing to reply to her teacher’s questions in French.

b) The influence of language symbol and text

Across the focus group, the extent to which the students thought their thinking competency was developed in terms of the International Capabilities criteria, was largely linked

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to their confidence in their ability to use Language, Symbol and Text, another key competency that appears in the framework. Student 1, who is driven by academic achievement, was far more focused on advancing her language skills given that she and her fellow Year 12s are in a combined class with Year 13s, who consequently have a further year’s language proficiency. Thus the imperative to build skills in critical and systems thinking were less as she struggled to match her older peers. Student 2, another Year 12, has a tendency to be overwhelmed when asked to focus on form in language classes, and activities that required communication in the target language would prevent her from participating in activities and in fact detract from her capability to learn. However, given the opportunity to communicate in a language that she feels comfortable with, in this case English, she then felt that she was able to show that she could in fact think critically in cross-cultural contexts, make connections and show an awareness of opposing interests.

For the Year 13 student, the thinking competency and the languages, symbol and text competency are inseparable. The students of this year level integrate the skills associated with thinking and those associated with language, symbol and text, acknowledging that the skill of learning to translate the language successfully requires the ability to critically think about deeper meaning and find appropriate cross cultural references where a literal translation may not be appropriate.

As the Year 13 students of this focus group felt more confident in their manipulation of French, they were less inclined to approach a resource in the target language as a document solely to translate and subsequently dissect in terms of language structure. Instead, these resources were analyzed in terms of their deeper meaning. Students quickly sought to ascertain what intercultural comparisons they could make. Furthermore, when faced with texts on immigration, which is both a local and global issue, the Year 13s sought to evaluate such documents in terms of their implied meanings and bias. In the first recorded lesson of this research period, while both Year 12 participants (Students 1 & 2) can be heard translating the text word by word, Student 4 can be observed discussing the underlying meaning of the text on stereotypes and debating the translation of words having understood the implied meaning in French but struggling to find the equivalent in English. Where students 1 & 2 were trying to dissect how vocabulary is put together in a sentence to make meaning, Student 3 was observed

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in a heated debate with Students 5 & 6 about the value of survey data, questioning the validity of the inferences being made –

“We were given a sheet that had survey responses and statistics from a survey (I don't know if it was real or not) about French people's opinions of immigrants. We were trying to discuss these reactions, and I brought up the fact that the way the questions were worded meant that you couldn't tell if the responses came from a place of xenophobia/racism, or if people were concerned about how the system was supporting immigrants and simply wanted changes. For example, there was a question about immigrants in Paris learning French, and I can't remember the exact question but the way it was worded meant that people who answered 'yes' might have been coming from a place of elitism and racism and 'oh learn the language you useless immigrants etc.', or they may have been meaning 'yes these immigrants should have the opportunity to learn the language and be a part of our culture'. This meant that we couldn't tell what the answers really showed about people opinions” (Student 3, journal entry)

The Year 13 students all readily admit that in the previous year of study, they experienced the same deficit in language, symbol and text as their Year 12 classmates were currently struggling with, which meant that the other key competencies were less prominent in their learning. In order to progress to higher order international capabilities such as critical thinking, they all agreed that Year 12 was essential in providing a key base of vocabulary and grammar with which they now have the opportunity to adapt and mold to suit their purpose, be it Relating to Others, Participating and Contributing or Thinking.

c) The unique role that learning a language has

All students of both learning levels agree that the language classroom provides them with a unique environment to develop critical thinking skills that show consideration for cultural differences. For each, the languages classroom was designed to help advance thinking in an internationally capable way through “discussions on French culture and life, different customs, and how different transliteration is to straight translation that does not cross cultural language barriers help me to think in an internationally capable way” (Student 3). This acknowledges that

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the skill of learning to translate the language successfully requires the ability to critically think about deeper meaning and find appropriate cross cultural references where a literal translation may not be appropriate. This is not a skill or task that the focus group students believe they have encountered in any other learning area of the curriculum.

d) The influence of other students

For the Year 12 participants of the group, it was often times difficult for them to engage cross-culturally with a resource in French due to the difficulty of the language being used. Instead, the addition of international students to the language class room was a means to engage cross-culturally. Both Student 1 & 2 noted that the experience of being able to talk with exchange students about their experiences and views of New Zealand and the differences between their home country and New Zealand was key to their critical thinking. As an example Student 2 spoke of her discussion with a German exchange student in the French classroom and her realization that often countries aim for the same outcome when faced with issues that need to be resolved, but the process to get there is different according to culture.

e) Formative versus summative assessment

Across all focus group participants, students identified that formative tasks such as discussion and debates provided them with more of an experience in developing systems and critical thinking in particular than their summative assessments did. They attributed this to the fact that often, they are aware of a marking schedule that specifies certain requirements to achieve the summative assessments. Therefore, the evidence that they prepare in the target language tends to be regurgitated phrases copied from the board and manipulated to make it seem like the words that they write are their own, rather than that of the teacher. In particular, the Year 12 students view speeches and conversations as tests of their ability to memorize key words and phrases and put them together in a logical progression. While memorization definitely has many valuable uses, fostering critical thinking is not among them. Year 12 students admit that their summative assessments are in fact exercises in piecing together memorized phrases that meet the standard required to achieve the task. Their more limited language capability together with their motivation to gain good grades and subject endorsements means that

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students are unprepared to take risks and make mistakes by using unprepared statements that reflect their actual thinking. This is also observable in certain Year 13 students depending on their motivation for learning and their fear of error.

Student 4, who is motivated by grades alone, has entire chunks of language rehearsed to slot into her final conversation assessment, that tick the box in terms of critical thinking and analyzing a film –

« Le film m’a fait peur. Je crois que c’est important pour moi, une jeune de la Nouvelle Zélande de voir ce film. Le film est très sombre, le film est sans couleur en noir et blanc, c’est une bonne idée car l’ambiance de film était plus facile à comprendre sans couleur, il ne me faisait pas heureuse. »

(The film scared me. I think that it is important for me, a young person of New Zealand, to see this film. The film is dark, the film is without color, in black and white. It’s a good idea as the setting of the film is easier to understand without color, it didn’t make me happy”)

When asked to explain her thinking, she initially struggles to convey her thoughts beyond simple sentences that don’t show an attempt to critically analyze her statements:

« En NZ j’habite à (home town), une petite ville, donc habiter dans une grande ville est différente, je pense que les gens ne sont pas aussi heureux. »

(In New Zealand I live in …, a small town, so living in a big city is different. I think the people aren’t as happy)

However, after a period of her teacher encouraging her, Student 4 begins to gain confidence in her language ability and thus some richer phrases in the target language appear that also show critical thinking:

« Je pense que le film Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis exprime la vie française mieux dans une sens culturelle. La Haine est honnête mais choquant et cynique, et parle que des immigres. Tous les personnages dans Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis sont blanches –et donc notre stéréotype de la France. »

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(I think that the film Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis explains French life better in a cultural sense. La Haine is honest but shocking and cynical, and only speaks of immigrants. All the characters in Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis are white – and thus our stereotype of France.)

Student 4 needed ten minutes to produce the statements above in her conversation assessment. In contrast, Student 3, who enjoys the intercultural context of the class, enters her conversation assessment with nothing prepared, her conversation assessment takes a total of 5 minutes and her consequent critical thinking on the spot can be observed while her use of the French language results in a more natural conversation, despite a few errors in grammar and vocabulary choice:

« Je pense que c’est un film dramatique… c’est intéressant, je ne pense pas que c’est un film joyeux ou sympa mais c’est intéressant… C’est différent à autres films qui s’agit de la France et il offre une vue différente. Je ne sais pas si je dirais j’aime ça mais je pense que c’est un film qu’on doit regarder. Je ne le regarderais pas encore pour le plaisir. Le jeu des acteurs et très bons mais les personnages qu’ils jouent ne sont bons, c’est-à-dire que le jeu des acteurs est bon car je n’aime pas les personnages grâce aux acteurs. »

(I think that it’s a dramatic film… it’s interesting, I don’t think that it’s a joyful or nice film, but it’s interesting… its different from other films about France and it offers a different view point. I wouldn’t say that I like that but I think that it is film that you should watch. I wouldn’t watch it again for pleasure… the acting is very good but the characters they play are not good. So, the acting is good because I don’t like the characters thanks to the actors.)

The observation of formative tasks such as class discussion and group debate revealed an interesting reflection on student abilities in terms of international capabilities. Prior to the research period, the teaching focus was on the use of the French language both in the classroom and in assessments. In the case of Student 2, her lack of production in the target language, had fostered an assumption by both her French teachers, that she was not gaining anything or developing any skills in the languages classroom. Excerpts from her final conversation assessment show that her struggles with the target language inhibit her ability to show critical thinking, never truly moving beyond simple sentences –

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« Il y a trois jeunes…. Hubert et mon préféré… il est sympa et il est visionnaire. Je n’aime pas Vinz parce qu’il est violent… J’aime la langue et les gens dans ma classe. Il y a beaucoup de différences – (home town) est petit – Paris est une grande ville. L’école est différente parce que en Nouvelle Zélande il y a l’uniforme, mais en France il n’y a pas d’uniforme »

(There are three youth … Hubert is my favorite... he is nice and a visionary. I don’t like Vinz because he is violent… I like the language and the people in my class… There are a lot of differences – (hometown) is small – Paris is a big city. School is different because in New Zealand there is a uniform but in France there isn’t a uniform”

However, upon focusing on how Student 2 was developing her International Capabilities, using the Thinking competency as a key indicator, Student 2 was able to demonstrate that she was taking the French texts used in class and developing critical thinking, ethical action and open- mindedness. Student 2 commented that the unit overall allowed her to reflect on “the importance of holistic thinking and not viewing a person as someone that needs to be stereotyped into a label.” However she demonstrated this ability through her contribution to discussions in class and in focus groups using her first language – English.

The student voice provided, shows that the Key Competency of Thinking has been experienced in the Learning Languages classroom and has contributed to the development of International Capabilities. The student experience has identified effective instructional practices to best implement the criteria attributed to the Key Competency, Thinking, in the International Capabilities Framework for the teacher in terms of their role, classroom activities the language used and the classroom environment. For the policy maker, the student experience recounted in this section contributes to the discussion as to how International Capabilities should be assessed and the unique role that the Learning Languages curriculum area provides to develop